


you suck, tetsu

by atsueshi



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1260901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atsueshi/pseuds/atsueshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He named his son Tetsuya. "His name belonged to someone I once knew, and that person was pretty damn calming, alright."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you suck, tetsu

The kid looked a lot like him: blue eyes, blue hair, even the same small nub in the forehead that made the baby look like he was frowning a lot, even without all the experience to do so. Daiki gently brushed the tiny baby’s cheeks, swimming in his muddled thoughts, until his wife brought him out of it when she asked, “What should we name him?”

     The answer was out of his lips faster than he could comprehend it. “Tetsuya. Aomine Tetsuya.”

     He was surprised at how easily it had come out, surprised he could say the name as effortlessly as that. The baby yawned and opened his dark blue eyes, stared up at him with that creased forehead, and it was so adorably wrong because here was his son, frowning at him from his crib, looking at him so solemnly and critically the way that guy would—

     “Hi there,” Daiki breathed out. He chuckled as the baby grabbed hold of his finger, and he felt his wife wrap her arms around him. “I like that name,” she said, resting her chin on his arm and stroking the baby’s small puffy tuft of blue hair. “It sounds so calming.”

     Daiki had to bite back a small laugh. “It won’t be calming once he starts crying in the middle of the night,” he told her. “But yeah. His name belonged to someone I once knew, and that person was pretty damn calming, alright.” She giggled into his shoulder and later admonished him for his use of the word ‘damn’, but there was no real heart to it, and Daiki could only assume that she knew.

     Of course she knew. She was, after all, the only other person to have ever bothered.

     It was okay for a while, and Daiki had thought he’d be fine. A week went on and all was going well; they were coping and his wife was recovering and work was a little tiring but it was always such a relief to come home to his wife and son. Daiki loved the little kid, with his rosy skin and blue hair and that quiet, intent stare that seemed unusual even for a baby, when all they do is stare. Even Midorima seemed a little put off when he first came over to meet the new Aomine.

     It was okay, really, and all was great, until the day he called his son “Tetsu” and felt himself freeze with the force of his realisation of the magnitude of his decision to name his son  _Tetsuya._  His wife ran to him, took the child from his arms, and called out his name, but it wasn’t until she touched his cheek that he came back to reality and found his voice. He apologised, said it would never happen again, but of course it did. It happened two, three, four more times, enough for even Daiki himself to know that something had to be done about it. So three weeks after his son’s birth, he made up his mind and decided to do the one thing he wished he could avoid. Halfway through the afternoon, he came up to the nursery where his wife and son were, and kissed them both. “I’m going out for a while,” he told her as they both watched the child sleep, and he would be lying to himself if he denied recognising the small spark of pain and recognition in her eyes.

     She smiled, though, as she put the baby back into his crib. She always did. “I’ll be here. I’ll make teriyaki for you.”

     Daiki paused at the doorway and, not for the first time, wondered how lucky a man had to be to deserve someone as beautiful as his wife. “Thanks,” he said, and almost made it out the door before running back into the nursery to gather her up in his arms and embrace her in hopes that his gratitude reaches her that way.

     It does. “You’re welcome,” she whispered as they breathed, and gently she steered Daiki toward the door. “You should leave before it gets dark,” she said as Daiki started the car. She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, and then opened it again, steeling herself to say something, so Daiki waited for it until she finally voiced it out. “You should get some azalea and cactus flowers.” She smiled. “Go. It’ll be dark soon.”

* * *

 

He had been driving in peace when his phone rang. It was Satsuki.

      _“Dai-chan, where are you?”_

     “I’m driving.”

_“To where?”_

     “Why are you calling? Something wrong?”

     It was a mark of how well they knew each other that Satsuki hadn’t bothered nagging him for his lack of response to her question.  _“No, all’s good.”_

Daiki hummed as Satsuki stayed quiet on the other end of the line, and they stayed like that for a couple more minutes until the line crackled and Satsuki spoke again. “ _How’s your baby?”_

     “He’s fine,” Daiki mumbled, and he didn’t mind the way he smiled to himself as he told her everything he could think of. “You should see him, Satsuki,” he babbled on, “he’s so cute, he’s got these weird lines all over his face and he stares at people so steadily. The wife says he’s scaring the shit out of everyone who comes to visit.”

     Satsuki laughed.  _“Well he definitely takes after his father. Just hope he gets his mother’s brains instead of yours though.”_

     “Hey, I’m plenty smart,” he said indignantly, but the smile still played on his lips. “Multiple intelligences, y’know that? You may be Miss Analytic but I’m still one hell of a sportsman, you gotta admit.”

      _“Sure, whatever, Dai-chan.”_

“I don’t like that tone.”

      _“What tone?”_ Even on the phone Daiki could hear the nasty grin on her face, the way she always looked when she’d tease him.

     “That. That patronising tone of yours,” Daiki told her. “We both know I’m right.”

      _“Yeah, yeah, of course, you’re the best,”_ she said, and then was quiet again.  _“What’s his name?”_

This time it was harder to say, because it was Satsuki, who knew him more than he knew himself, who’d probably get mad at him and tell him off for it, who’d probably throw him plates and slam his head against some wall for doing it—

     —Satsuki, who’d probably understand more than anyone else or ever will.

      “T-Tetsuya,” Daiki finally breathed into the phone. “I named him Tetsuya.”

     Satsuki didn’t say anything for a long, long time, and by the time she did, he was almost at his destination.  _“Dai-chan, you idiot.”_ Daiki didn’t even bother refuting it, and Satsuki probably knew that he knew it too, so she sighed and audibly brightened up, perhaps for Daiki’s sake more than hers. “ _It seems like a fitting name!”_

Daiki pulled up at the side of the road and pressed his palms to his eyes. “Yeah.” For a while it was all he could bring himself to say, and Satsuki’s continued silence was so full of meaning it was fit to burst and Daiki just wanted to smack himself for being whatever kind of special idiot he was.

      _“Say hi to him for me, alright?”_

     So even Satsuki found it hard. “Yeah,” Daiki said again. “Yeah, I will.”

     The call ended and Daiki found himself staring at the spiralling bronze gates absently, turning over countless scenarios in his mind, wondering what to say and practising his lines like they mattered anyway. (No. Of course it mattered. It _always_ mattered.) He grabbed the flowers and made his way. The sun was starting to set, and it was a pretty long trek to get there, but Daiki’s feet walked on even as his mind was slowly backing away and telling him to make a run for it and go home, back to his wife and son and the beef teriyaki that were all waiting for him. It was taxing keeping his mind and body in line, and the argument in his head played it out until he found himself standing in front of the white gravestone faster than he had anticipated.

      He then realised that there was a huge lump in his throat that made it just a little  _too_ hard to speak.

      He sat down and put the flowers in front of the white marble, and for a long time, he just stared at the strokes of the Kanji that spelled out his son’s name, preceded by an all-too-familiar set of characters that very nearly made Daiki bend over with the force of the sudden punch to the gut that came with seeing  _his_  name again after years. 

      He figured the only way around it was to talk, though, so he breathed in real deep and pushed the words out of his dry mouth. His throat resisted and it hurt to force himself to say something, but he did, and the raw feeling of the words clawing its way out reminded Daiki of a lot of things that eventually helped him get a better grip on himself.

     It was still very, very hard. “Hiya, Tetsu,” he began. He looked up at the darkening sky, sighed, closed his eyes against the feel of the soft breeze the brushed over his face and revelled in the biting cold of it. It was only two weeks into February, and the winter still hadn’t gone away completely. When he opened his eyes, he tried again.

      _But what to say?_

     “So… Well, first of all I’m sorry if I wasn’t here on your birthday.” He started calming down, and it gradually became easier to speak. “My wife gave birth the day before so I had to stay in and watch over her. You have no idea how hard it is having to take care of a woman after giving birth. Remember how I told you she was such a pain in the ass while she was pregnant? Yeah? Well, after the delivery she drove me nuts about things like looking too fat and feeling ugly that Satsuki had to step in and comfort her for me. Y’see? Even  _Satsuki_ had to step in. Yeah, it was that bad.”

     A car whizzed past the road visible from where Daiki was, and the sky overhead was a clash of colours – bright yellows, dark reds and oranges, and slowly settling into place, the dark and light blues. He inhaled then brought his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them.

     “You should see him. The kid’s a real piece of work. Looks just like me, except he’s got his mom’s fair skin and pink lips. He barely cried during his first few weeks, I kind of freaked out because holy  _shit_  the kid was really quiet and even though it was nice I still worried, y’know? ‘Cause Midorima said kids weren’t supposed to be so quiet. It was so weird. But Akashi came to visit and the kid kind of made happy gurgling sounds when they played. Akashi looked really amused. It was kind of funny, in fact, seeing Akashi around a child. I was a little scared about it though, but like always he seemed completely in control of himself.

     “Murasakibara came over, too, and can you believe the guy just decided to bake us five cakes? She was really happy about it, though, because Murasakibara said it was sugar-free, whatever the hell that meant. Like cake’s ever going to be good without sugar.” Daiki laughed and lifted a finger to the carved characters in the marble. “Kise and Satsuki are doting, and my son’s not even one month old yet but they’re already spoiling him rotten. Good thing my wife’s a little stricter. He probably won’t grow up so used to their affections. Kise though, he’s kind of hard to reel in. He comes over every other day bringing new baby shoes or baby clothes, and – get this – he bought the weirdest baby socks I have ever  _seen_  in my entire existence and you will not believe how horrified she looked when she saw the basketball patterns on it. She freaked out  _completely_ , I tell you, she looked so scary staring at Kise and telling him off for trying to feed our son basketball thoughts. Kise never looked so cowed, it was  _amazing_  to watch. Satsuki’s complaining about how I didn’t take a video of it, but I was laughing too hard to even care, really so it wasn’t really possible for me to have done anything about it. Would probably have dropped the camera.

     “Your senpais and Kagami are all doing fine. That idiot is making quite a name in the pro scene. He’s playing for Japan right now. Those two older ones – Kiyoshi, was it? And Hyuuga? – are working together, and your coach and the funny guy – well, he wasn’t really _that_  funny – are now with Ryo in the States. I think they’re coaching schools there now too. They still send us letters and stuff, and Kagami even mailed me those new Nikes and a matching pair for my kid. Oh, and Satsuki says hi by the way.”

     Daiki paused, wondered whether it would do any good mentioning anything more, figured it wouldn’t hurt and went on. “I named him after you, by the way. My son. He’s Aomine Tetsuya.” The lump in his throat was back, and this time it was accompanied by a strange, constricting pain in his chest that seemed familiar somehow. He tried to ignore it.

     (He was never more wrong. It  _did_ hurt, and it hurt a goddamn lot.)

     “Really sounds nice, right? Aomine Tetsuya. Wonder if it would have been as nice if  _you_  had that name instead.” Daiki closed his eyes tight against the burning that had begun behind his eyelids. “He even takes after you, being all quiet and mysterious, and he’s only three weeks old.”

     Stunned into silence and holding back his emotions, Daiki kept his eyes shut and clutched at the gravestone until all feeling had gone from his hand; fragments of memories chased each around other in Daiki’s mind, bouncing off his skull and resonating with a dull stretched sound that rattled whatever little left of Daiki’s self-control: that one phone call from Midorima, Satsuki’s harried face as she told him the news, the lonely tear that streaked down Kise’s cheek when Daiki found him outside that emergency room, the wrecked car ten minutes away from his apartment, the strength of Akashi’s hand on his shoulder wavering for the first time in living memory—

     “You suck, Tetsu.”

     It was only too easy to let go of the gravestone and plant his hands into his face, burrowing his head into his palms and pressing them against his eyes, as if doing so would help stem the tears that spilled out of his eyes, hot and fast and thick; it was only too easy to curl up into himself, to rest his elbows on his knees and hide his face in the folds of his sleeves, too easy to forget that night was falling and the cold was getting too sharp on his skin, too easy to rock back and forth and cry for whatever purpose it served.

     It was too easy to let his emotions through and wreak havoc the way only grief ever could, but it was never too easy to comprehend the reasons for that grief, and it was never too easy to say out loud the words he once said too often but never too much, because this time no-one was around to hear him say it.

      _You suck, Tetsu._

     It was so quiet.

* * *

     (And if Daiki had come home with red, puffy eyes and a bruised hand, his wife never asked. She only smiled and held him close as he watched little Tetsuya sleep on without a care in the world.)


End file.
